Slay Queens, Bitcoin, Cryptocurrency, Blockchain Technology and Value

This is the first article in a series of posts to come called ‘Cryptocurrency sermons – of wisdom, realism, surrealism, and psychology.’

I am sure you are wondering what is this link between slay queens, bitcoin and cryptocurrencies which the title of this article is alluding to.

I will get to this in a bit.

Bitcoin, or call it cryptocurrency, blockchain technology or cryptography, is a new thing to most of us. I was keen to know more about it and so I dug into its background and developments.

I find this technology as both simple and complex to understand and explain. It also occurred to me that today’s money – traditional money as we know it (coins, banknotes and the digits in our bank accounts) – is likewise simple and complex.

In investigating these technologies, I found myself digging into the history and evolution of money – the transition from barter exchange to the gold standard and to money as we know it today.

The minute I heard that bitcoin is a currency or a digital currency, or a crypto-currency, I subsequently started asking myself what is a currency. I found that money as we know it – e.g. the Dollar, South African Rand, Pound, Zim Dollar, Yen, or any currency used by any country today – is called fiat currency. I didn’t know that.

It is given that when you dig into the history of anything, you will intuitively start comparing that history to the now. In a way, I also discovered certain parallel philosophies and sociologies.

The stupid person in me also connected certain comical innuendos and nuances.

So, it is for your understanding that I will use slay-queens and the 7 Characteristics of Money to explain to you what is bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and value.

Before I start, let me put down the following definitions which you should look at now or later so to cement your understanding of these new phenomena in discussion.

Money – something generally accepted as a medium of exchange, a measure of value, or a means of payment.

Fiat money – the money we use traditionally and issued by central/reserve banks: banknotes, coins, cheques (although no longer widely used or accepted), central bank digital money (the digits or the money in our bank accounts and that can be cashed out to into fiat banknotes and coins at ATM’s, banks or wherever possible – or used make purchases and trades).

Currency – a system of money in general use in a particular country

Central/reserve bank – is a country’s chief bank that provides and maintains that country’s fiscal policy and commercial banking system.

Cryptocurrency – a digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank. It’s decentralised and transactions are verified by network nodes through the use of cryptography and recorded in a public distributed ledger called a blockchain.

Blockchain technology/ledger – it is a continuous list of records, called blocks, which are linked and secured by cryptography. Each block contains a hash of the previous block, a timestamp and transaction data. It built to be resistant to modification. It is an openly distributed and verifiable ledger of transactions between two parties. It is managed and validated by a peer-to-peer network of people (miners ) collectively adhering to an inter-node communication.

Bitcoin (it is a type of cryptocurrency) – a type of digital currency in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank.

Slay queens and bitcoin versus The7 Characteristics of Money

A currency has to meet these 7 characteristics of money. Fiat currency already meets them, or it tries as much to, otherwise, it loses credibility – i.e. value

(1). Acceptability

Slay queens

You are acceptable to them by providing these kinds of stuff. Like it or dislike it, it’s what they expect in exchange for whatever they offer. It is their currency.

This currency is acceptable to certain members of our society. So there’s a market – whether you like it or not, agree or disagree.

Well obviously slay queening is not acceptable to all, but it is a good way to understand that currency should at least be acceptable – to some. It’s kind of like drugs, but let us not get into that now.

Slay queens meet the characteristic of ‘acceptability’ of a currency- although not acceptable to all members of society.

Fiat money

Fiat money is acceptable and trusted – hence it continues to work. There are checks and balances of course.

If it’s no longer trusted, like how the Zimbabwean Dollar crashed in 2008, it loses credibility and more people/countries/companies start not to accept it – and it depreciates in value.

Bitcoin

In 2014, rapper 50 Cent let people buy his album ‘Animal Ambition’ using bitcoin. He made over $400 000 in sales.

Bitcoin isn’t in use by the entire world but it is gaining traction as a currency. It is still growing. A smashing number of online stores have plugins that accept it.

Bitcoin is already acceptable to millions of people and businesses.

(2). Valuability

Slay queens

These kinds of lifestyles described above are valuable to slay queens – for whatever reason. Our assembling here today is to understand and not to judge.

Again, these kinds of lifestyles are valuable to those who fund them. Having a narrow understanding of what value is won’t help here.

It’s the going rate baby. Meet it or others will meet it. And others do meet it.

Fiat currency

It is, of course, valuable to governments. It is their measurement of value.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is already valuable to millions of people. Some may say it is valuable to money launderers – but such an argument doesn’t take away that it is valuable to millions of people.

(3). Portability

One argument can be that slay queens are portable since they can be flown to Dubai and other exotic places and events.

Your dirty mind is already on some graphic images of ‘portable.’ Get out of the gutter. This is an academic dissertation.

Bartering as a currency wasn’t the most portable means of exchange and hence it fell off. If you had to exchange a cow for three goats, physically these animals would have to be taken to where the exchange was to happen.

The gold standard came in. Gold is heavy to carry. Gold certificates where introduced. They became some form of money – as they represented the value of gold a person had.

Fiat money is a government decree that a certain unit carrying coin or bank note, e.g. R100 represents a hundred units of the currency’s value. The unit’s value in a relation to a traded product is determined by an agreement between the product’s supply and demand. To make an example, person A accepts R6000 in exchange for a cow if:

It is an acceptable value to him.

Other sellers would accept the same sum and not lesser for a similar cow under the same conditions (e.g. similar logistical convenience for the buyer to other sellers).

Slay queens

The three forms of fiat money (banknotes, coins, and central bank digital money) are just a representation of value the central bank has under control, hence they can be exchanged in a trade.

Fiat money

It is portable both physically and digitally. Physically, it has its disadvantages. It requires muscle. And you can get mugged.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is portable only online unless in the future they make banknotes and coins. And I guess it would be hard to maintain integrity in their authenticity. Central banks maintain authenticity in their printed money – although with incidents but the hurt is minimal that doesn’t hurt the system from continuing with credibility.

(4). Divisibility

Fiat money

Money decimals have a fraction whose denominator is to the power of 10.

Money is divisible to the last cent. Cents are rounded off to the nearest two decimals, i.e. 86 cents (R0.86) and not 856 cents (not R0.856 but R0.86).

You cannot give someone 856 cents but only 86 cents. This is the structure of fiat money in the world.

Therefore money’s divisibility is finite.

Slay queens

Definitely, slay queens are not divisible. Yes, one slay queen can call other slay queens and multiply, but one slay queen cannot be divided into two or more slay queens.

Trying to round people off is abuse. We will talk about this maybe in the future.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is definitely divisible and divisible infinitely.

Note that the smallest unit of money is a cent. E.g. A cent is 100 times of one unit of currency, e.g. a cent is 100 times of R1 or $1 or €1.

Now with bitcoin (its currency acronym/sign is BTC), its smallest unit is called a satoshi. A Satoshi is one hundred millionth of a bitcoin (0.00000001 BTC). Think about that mayne!

(5). Uniformity

This implies that any two same units of money or same currency must be uniform or the same, e.g. R10’s must be the same.

Slay queens

God didn’t make people to look ‘on the pixel’ the same. So the perception of who is a slay queen lies in their looks or maybe attitude, makeup and photo filters – and or the blessers.

Slay queens do not meet this characteristic.

Fiat money

Central bank banknotes and coins of the same value are uniform and the same. Digital currency is digitally numeric and thus cannot be uniform as physical money.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is digital. It is digitally numeric. Uniformity doesn’t apply to it, just like central bank digital currency above.

(6). Durability

This applies to physical money, i.e. banknotes and coins.

Slay queens

No human being is durable or can be renewed to yesterday day. Every day a human being’s cells die.

Scientists are however working on stopping aging. It has to do with arresting human cells from aging – or some shit like that.

Fiat money

Banknotes and coins are durable.

As they circulate, banks return them to the central/reserve bank, whom then burn or melt them to then reprint/mint new ones.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin is digital.

(7). Limited supply

Slay queens

Yes, slay queens are limited in supply. But then again, refresh your Instagram, you get 10 more slay queens.

Jokes aside.

Fiat money

Money was backed by gold. Meaning any unit of money you had represented a certain amount of gold. It was called commodity money. Then it changed to fiat money. It is essentially the government through the reserve/central bank printing money and lending it out to banks at an interest. The banks make money by lending it out further.

The integrity of money is backed-up by the measured believe that all lenders will pay back what they borrowed.

The commercial banks handle the distribution of money, either through loaning out or disbursing of salaries on behalf of companies – generally processing money transactions for all reasons possible, e.g. blessers sending their slay queens money (eWallet). And the banks charge fees for this.

Only limited money is availed and through certain restrictions. It’s a bit complicated.

Bitcoin

Gold is limited as it is not in abundance. Again it has to be mined.

Taking from the theory of gold, bitcoin has limited supply. The bitcoin protocol stipulates that only 21 million bitcoins will be mined (the process of people validating cryptocurrency/bitcoin transactions and thus being rewarded with cryptocurrency/bitcoin). As to what happens when this threshold is reached, it is still an innovative debate.

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Conclusion, to be continued

The next post will continue to explore parallels with other sociological attributes in explaining and understanding bitcoin and cryptocurrency. This is how new bitcoins are also released.

To be continued… Sign up for my newsletter to get the first alert when posts in continuation of this series are published. Go here www.tiisetsomaloma.com